Most organizations believe they’re doing AI ethics. They’ve checked the boxes, signed the policies, updated the handbook. But compliance isn’t the same as flourishing—and the gap between them is where safety, trust, and long-term performance live. If you’re a CXO, a school leader, or a services director, you’ve probably asked: Are we doing enough? The answer depends on where you sit on The Human Impact Ladder : a five-stage journey from “meets the minimum” to “helps people t

Last week, I watched our daughter Phoebe solve a coding problem using ChatGPT. She'd ask a question, get an answer, implement it, hit an error, ask again. The loop took seconds. Watching her work, I realized something unsettling: the machine was operating at its speed, not hers. And that's the quiet crisis nobody's talking about. The Speed Mismatch We're Not Discussing Here's the uncomfortable truth: AI capabilities are doubling every seven months while human cognition has

I'll admit it: I hate checklists. They feel reductive. Bureaucratic. Like someone's trying to turn complex human decisions into a paint-by-numbers exercise. But here's the paradox: when it comes to ethical AI, most leaders need something concrete. Not because they're lazy, but because "be ethical" is about as actionable as "be innovative." So let's try this: a checklist that doesn't feel like compliance theater. A framework that moves from checking boxes to caring about out

I was sitting in a corporate meeting last month when someone said, "Our new AI productivity tool is amazing, it tracks everything!" The room nodded enthusiastically. But then I asked one question that changed the conversation: "Does it track the sensory load it's creating?" Silence. Here's the thing most organizations miss: your AI tools might be quietly exhausting your people. Not through bad algorithms or broken features, but through something far more insidious, sensory ov

I’m writing this as a parent first. Our daughter is 23. She’s autistic, ADHD, and epileptic. We’ve done the diagnosis maze, the therapies, the long ER visits that blur into morning, and two craniotomies that changed how I think about “support” forever. When you’ve lived that reality, the workplace question stops being abstract. It becomes simple: will this environment help someone thrive, or quietly grind them down? We’ve spent this series talking about sensory sensitivity, a

I’m going to start somewhere more human than a checklist: with our daughter, Phoebe. She’s 23, autistic, ADHD, and epileptic, and our family’s learned the hard way what “risk” feels like when it’s real, immediate, and personal: diagnoses that took years to untangle, therapies that helped (and some that didn’t), too many ER visits, and two craniotomies that changed the shape of our lives overnight.  That’s why I’m allergic to performative safety. Because when the stakes are h

I’m writing this as a parent first. Our daughter is 23. She’s autistic, ADHD, and epileptic. We’ve done the diagnosis maze, the therapies, the long ER visits that blur into morning, and two craniotomies that changed how I think about “support” forever. When you’ve lived that reality, the workplace question stops being abstract. It becomes simple: will this environment help someone thrive, or quietly grind them down? We’ve spent this series talking about sensory sensitivity, a

Parenting a child who doesn't fit the mold can feel like standing at the edge of a cliff—equal parts fear and excitement, with a spectacular view if only the fog lifts. When our daughter Phoebe received her diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and intractable epilepsy at 18 months, a chorus of specialists lined up to deliver a symphony of warnings, caveats, and low expectations. But they missed something vital: this wasn't the start of a tragedy—it was the beginning of our family's rev

As a neuroscientist and father of 22-year-old daughter living with autism, ADHD, and epilepsy, I have experienced firsthand how...